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Topic: Lore: Learning Gifts (Read 1608 times)

Were the Garou armed only with claw, fang, and Rage, they would have lost the war for Gaia long ago. The arsenal of the Mother’s warriors is varied and miraculous. In accordance with sacred pacts made at the dawn of time, spirits grant mystical blessings and powers — known as Gifts — to worthy Garou who know how to ask, and to those who impress the spirits. These Gifts attune werewolves to the spiritual power flowing throughout the Tellurian, and allow them to express that power in much the same fashion as spirits. Different tribes, auspices and even breeds are the inheritors of different mystical legacies, and so the Gifts normally granted to them differ. Gifts are divided into levels: Level One Gifts are the weakest, taught to cubs and cliaths, while Level Five Gifts are reserved for the wisest, most honorable, and most glorious heroes of the Garou Nation. As a character gains more experience, she may purchase more Gifts. However, the character must be of a rank equal to or higher than the level of the Gift desired, or she cannot possess it —the blessings of the spirits won’t settle on the shoulders of the unworthy. During play, a werewolf may learn the Gifts of other breeds, auspices or tribes, provided she can find a spirit (or other Garou) to teach her. However, these Gifts cost more than those normally associated with her own tribe, auspice and breed (see the Experience Point chart under 'Spending Experience Points').

Spoiler for "Level Six Gifts":

Level Six Gifts are the blessings of the gods and the stuff of legend, even to creatures that walk among the spirits all their lives. Such Gifts are available only to the greatest heroes of a generation, Garou whose legends will be retold until the very end of days; and then only if the hero can make her way to an Incarna’s court and fulfill a quest or deed for the godlike spirit — such incredible powers are never granted in response to a ritemaster’s summons. Because they are so rare, only a few representative examples are provided here; most of these Gifts are known by only one living Garou at a time, if that.

Learning Gifts

Most often, a werewolf must either petition a particular spirit to teach her its powers or ask an elder to summon that spirit on her behalf (see below for the ritual of summoning). Traditionally, the Garou first travels to a caern with a power level equal to or greater than that of the desired Gift to petition the spirit personally — to do otherwise is to defy tradition, which risks incurring the wrath of the spirit. But as more caerns fall to the talons of the Wyrm, many Garou are forced to make do with whatever places of power they can find, or even to summon spirits outside of caerns completely. Such slighted spirits often demand recompense or service before consenting to share their blessings. Other Garou, lacking access to a ritemaster capable of summoning spirits at all, must track down potential mentors and petition them directly in the Umbra. The manifold dangers of such ventures include offending the spirit in its home or mistaking a hostile spirit for a friendly one. Although werewolves speak of “learning” and “teaching” Gifts, the process is more akin to a blessing than a period of instruction. The spirit infuses some of its nature into the Garou, imbuing her with a portion of its mystical talents. Young Wendigo don’t struggle to bend the wind to their will under a spirit’s stern gaze until they get it right — an air elemental blows into the werewolf’s soul until bending the wind to his will becomes an essential feature of what the Garou is, just as it is for the spirit. Because of the mystic nature of this communion, learning Gifts is normally fast and simple, taking an hour on average, and no more than a night in even the most complex cases. Werewolves are also capable of teaching Gifts to one another, but this process is neither fast nor easy. Learning a Gift from another Garou is a long process of trial and error, of attempting to achieve communion with another werewolf and emulate the shape of his soul. At best, the process takes a full lunar month. Most elders strongly discourage this practice, viewing it as unacceptably risky on a number of levels. Wielding incomplete mastery of Gifts such as Silver Claws, for example, can be not only painful, but dangerous to the Garou and to others in his pack or sept. Moreover, the level and depth of sustained intimacy necessary for werewolves to teach Gifts to one another can strain the bounds of the Litany, and more than a few metis have resulted from tutoring sessions gone too far. Once learned, Gifts cannot be forgotten; they become as much a part of the werewolf as her ability to speak or walk. Some Galliards recount tales of Incarnae or Celestines revoking the Gifts of their servants from Garou who terribly offend them; but other tales speak of arrogant and haughty werewolves abusing the Gifts of the spirit world with impunity. In the Final Days, few Garou consider it prudent to trust to the spirit world to deliver justice to those who would misuse its blessings, preferring to take matters into their own claws.

Rite of Summoning

Garou mystics are adept at calling spirits, be they minor Gafflings, totem spirits, or even Incarna. Summoning spirits involves complex rituals, long periods of meditation, and tribal mantra chanting. Within the Umbra, this process is far easier. This rite compels spirits to seek those who call them. Furthermore, the spirit cannot escape its caller once the summoning is completed successfully, and it must at tend the mystic. Many spirits, particularly minor ones, are too weak to resist a powerful summoning. Powerful ones come out of curiosity. The chance of a successful summoning depends upon the skill of the mystic, the power of the spirit, and the strength of the area’s Gauntlet.

System: The ritemaster must pierce the Gauntlet just as if he were entering the Umbra (Gnosis roll against the local Gauntlet level). A mystic already within the Umbra is not required to pierce the Gauntlet. The power level of the spirit determines the difficulty level of a successful summoning. The Storyteller can determine difficulty from the following chart:

For each hour the Garou spends invoking the spirit, his difficulty drops by one. No difficulty may fall below 3. The player must then make a Gnosis roll and achieve as many successes as possible, with the following results:

Successes - Effect1 - Spirit comes eventually and is initially hostile2 - Spirit manifests quickly, but it is still initially hostile3 - Spirit comes immediately and is neutral4 - Spirit comes immediately and is passively benign5 - Spirit comes immediately and is friendly

A botched roll is likely to have disastrous results. Often a botch summons the wrong type of spirit — or even Banes — in great numbers or with great hostility. The Storyteller should feel free to adjust the previous tables as she wishes, particularly as appropriate to totems. In certain cases, a Garou who attempts to summon a specific spirit will have no chance of success. At other times, he will have almost no chance of failure. The Storyteller is advised to treat each use of this rite individually and to use common sense in her decisions. A Garou who summons an Incarna or Celestine avatar successfully gains two points of Wisdom Renown, unless the summons is done frivolously.

For each hour the Garou spends invoking the spirit, his difficulty drops by one. No difficulty may fall below 3.

Not saying that the process for summoning is short, but does this mean that after a somewhat.. 30 minute session of tribal chanting and invoking the spirit, should it be a Gaffling - 4 or Jaggling - 5, the difficulty should continue to be 4-5. So much so that the rite of summoning doesn't take overly long?

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Furthermore, the spirit cannot escape its caller once the summoning is completed successfully, and it must at tend the mystic.

Question, can 'any' type of spirit be summoned by a mystic/ritemaster, if they are summoning it to a caern? Such as a Weaver spirit to a Wyld sanctioned caern?

I'm also rather confused as to if different tribes have different caern mentalities, such as a Wyld tribe's caern is different from a Weaver tribes caern, such as the Red Talon's to the Glass Walkers?

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Its hard managing three accounts, with all you with 5-6 accounts, I honestly don't know how you do it.

Not saying that the process for summoning is short, but does this mean that after a somewhat.. 30 minute session of tribal chanting and invoking the spirit, should it be a Gaffling - 4 or Jaggling - 5, the difficulty should continue to be 4-5. So much so that the rite of summoning doesn't take overly long?

I am not sure if I understood your question, but as mentioned every one hour of the ritual session the difficulty to summon the spirit drops by one, let's say - a Jaggling spirit is the type of spirit you wish to summon. You start the ritual and proceed with it for two hours long (2 IC hours, thus 1 ooc hour); The difficulty have dropped equal to the hours you have worked for. So, the difficulty will drop by two here. Making it difficulty 3 to summon the said Jaggling.

As I said I didn't quite understand your question, so if you meant something else do say.

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Question, can 'any' type of spirit be summoned by a mystic/ritemaster, if they are summoning it to a caern? Such as a Weaver spirit to a Wyld sanctioned caern?

This is a yes and a no, because you can't summon the spirit without it's material correspondence. Such as, a metal elemental would request industrial music and quantities of the metal that composes the elemental. You can't find that in a Wyld-caern and if you do that in the said caern you're probably disrespecting your own caern spirits for that as they are of the Wyld and so on. Although, it may be possible however the spirit wouldn't be as friendly and this is where the storyteller comes in place and uses his imagination to deal with situations like these, such as increasing the difficulty to summon it, or the spirit just wouldn't answer the call as it didn't really like the ritemaster, unless the summon was powerful enough to force it there.

I am not sure if I understood your question, but as mentioned every one hour of the ritual session the difficulty to summon the spirit drops by one, let's say - a Jaggling spirit is the type of spirit you wish to summon. You start the ritual and proceed with it for two hours long (2 IC hours, thus 1 ooc hour); The difficulty have dropped equal to the hours you have worked for. So, the difficulty will drop by two here. Making it difficulty 3 to summon the said Jaggling.

I want to ask if the ritual for the rite of summoning is long by default.. without spending any hours to lower the difficulty. Say if you want to summon a jaggling without spending the hours to lower the difficulty, but right away.

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Its hard managing three accounts, with all you with 5-6 accounts, I honestly don't know how you do it.

I am not sure if I understood your question, but as mentioned every one hour of the ritual session the difficulty to summon the spirit drops by one, let's say - a Jaggling spirit is the type of spirit you wish to summon. You start the ritual and proceed with it for two hours long (2 IC hours, thus 1 ooc hour); The difficulty have dropped equal to the hours you have worked for. So, the difficulty will drop by two here. Making it difficulty 3 to summon the said Jaggling.

I want to ask if the ritual for the rite of summoning is long by default.. without spending any hours to lower the difficulty. Say if you want to summon a jaggling without spending the hours to lower the difficulty, but right away.

Oh, right. There's no default time for the ritual to take place, it can be in a few minutes or thirty minutes. It will follow the default difficulties.

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Guest

Also, for certain broods of spirits there're specific modifiers, i.e, you get less difficulty trying to summon a Lune in the Aetherial Realm instead of doing so in any other Umbrae layer. Such information can be found in the book "Axis Mundi - Book of Spirits". Notoriety and affinity mechanics also play a role in this. I could elaborate on that if people deem needed.

Guest

Spirit affinity and notoriety are mutually exclusive when talking of one's brood.

Spirity affinity is the measurement of good reputation and interaction with spirits.Spirit notoriety is the opposite, negative reputation and interaction with spirits.

For example, Spirit affinity +1:

Low Approval – +1 trait on all social interactions with spirits of that brood (Summoning, Social challenges related to mood and requests, no challenges related to combat.) Some spirits of that brood in the area think you are a pretty cool guy.

Whereas spirit notoriety -1:

Low Approval – -1 trait on all social interactions with spirits of that brood (Summoning, Social challenges related to mood and requests, no challenges related to combat.) Some spirits of that brood in the area think you are a pretty lame guy.

Yeah, as I've written above the storyteller is free to adjust the difficulty however he deems fit. There are so many circumstances the storyteller ought to take in place when deciding difficulties like these. The way you talk, the things you talk about, whatever you chant, what you wear, what weapons you hold, did you break a spiritual pact before? Did you annoy one of the spirit brood, did you disrespect any of them, what is going on around you, is it noisy? does the spirit like noise? That lowers the difficulty. Is it a quiet spirit? That makes it higher and so on. It's really too long for a list to be made of what may change the difficulty hence the storyteller has to be creative when doing so.